NIBA Welcomes Consumer Protection Package

The National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) welcomes the consumer protection package announced by the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, the Hon Dr Daniel Mulino MP, on 19 August 2026. NIBA particularly welcomes the government's decision to scope the ban on unlicensed real-time contact to superannuation. That was the central recommendation of NIBA's submission to Treasury, and it is the decision that allows the reform to reach the conduct that caused the harm.

The package responds to the collapses of the Shield and First Guardian Master Funds, which affected almost 12,000 Australians and around $1 billion in retirement savings. That conduct began with predatory lead generation: consumers contacted after responding to online advertising, then moved through a chain of referrals into products they had not asked for. NIBA does not defend those practices and supports their removal from the financial system.

Australians commonly reach a professional insurance broker through a referral from an accountant, a mortgage broker, a strata manager or an industry association. Those pathways involve no cold contact, no unlicensed sales process and no movement of retirement savings. They are how many households and small businesses obtain professional advice, market access and claims advocacy.

"The government has drawn this reform where the harm actually sits, and that precision is what will make it work," said NIBA CEO Richard Klipin. "A measure drafted more widely would have interrupted the ordinary ways Australians find their way to professional advice, at the very moment they are trying to protect themselves. Getting the scope right is the difference between removing predatory conduct and leaving consumers with fewer places to turn."

Several measures apply across financial products rather than to superannuation alone, including changes to the anti-hawking exemption and a new obligation on licensees to oversee lead generation arrangements. The government has signalled further consultation on targeted exemptions. NIBA will engage in that process, with a focus on ensuring established group insurance and referral arrangements continue to operate for the consumers who depend on them.

NIBA looks forward to working with the government, Treasury and all sides of politics through the legislative design process, so that the protections announced this week are delivered without narrowing the professional advice available to Australian households and businesses.